HEILUNG
Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin
★★★★★
Last year the folk collective Heilung recorded a version of what they claimed was the world’s oldest song – a tune to chill the blood and invoke awe and wonder. Surprisingly, this turned out not to be Do You Want Your Old Lobby Washed Down by Brendan Shine but a Babylonian bop from 2400 BC.
The sounds, sights and even smells of the dawn of recorded history are a subject of recurring fascination for Heilung. When not bringing back bangers from Babylon, the group, with members from Germany and Norway, draw on texts and runic inscriptions from Iron Age Teutonic tribes – an aesthetic they describe as “amplified history”. People are paying attention, too. Their track Hakkerskaldyr featured in the trailer for Robert Eggers’s visceral Viking valentine The Northman. And their latest European tour is a stone-cold sell-out.
There is always the possibility of looking slightly silly when performing runic Germanic music while dressed like a grimdark hedge. But Heilung really commit to the bit
At the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre they sweep the audience far away from Dublin on a chilly Thursday in January. The concert begins with a man wearing a cowl wandering a stage inscribed with a vast runic symbol, scattering incense as he shuffles. He is joined by a procession of bandmates whose outfits consist of leather, bone and bits of twig. (A few seem to wear nothing beyond blue warpaint.)
When performing runic Germanic music while dressed like a grimdark hedge there is always the possibility of looking slightly silly. But Heilung, founded by the former evangelical Christian tattoo artist Kai Uwe Faust, really commit to the bit. One of their drums is made from horse skin “baptised” in the blood of the ensemble’s founding members. And instead of getting the party going with maracas, their percussion section rattle shakers containing human ash. Beat that, Toy Show the Musical.
Ridiculous in theory, this avalanche of blood-soaked horsehair, undead percussion and Valkyrie singing is undeniably powerful in the flesh. The evening opens with the 18-piece band in a circle, hands joined Midsommar style. Later dancers writhe while vocalist Maria Franz howls and pirouettes.
She looks like a final-level boss from the Dark Souls video game; the music is Enya-sings-Wagner or Björk’s grindcore phase meets the orgy from Eyes Wide Shut. This is followed by a sort of Viking haka. And then a face-off between a trio of female singers, who shriek and sway. You’ve arrived in hell and are being serenaded by the demon souls of the Sugababes.
There’s a human pulse under the pantomime. For the encore, one of the dancers leaps into the crowd and encourages everyone to their feet. Heilung yowl and rattle and then form a circle once more, before finally departing. In their wake there is only silence and the smell of incense. And the understanding that you have witnessed something terrifyingly strange, strangely terrifying and altogether unique.
